PROFILE | Lille’s Tiago Santos’ rise halted by injury | OneFootball

Everything looked in place for Tiago Santos to become one of the key figures in the Lille squad this season. The right-back had a brilliant first half of the year where he had claimed his place as the starting fullback under previous head coach Paulo Fonseca.

Santos had put in a number of impressive performances for Les Dogues during his first season at the club using his speed to attack on the overlap. The fullback would be partnered with Edon Zhegrova where the two mavericks would completely unsettle opposition defences who struggled to handle the threat posed by the somewhat contrasting players.

The emergence of Santos in the Lille squad in the 2023/24 season had done more than enough to cause the incoming head coach Bruno Génésio a significant selection headache over the summer when the experienced Thomas Meunier was also brought into the side.

It’s a testament to how far Santos has come that it was not immediately obvious who would take the reigns between him and Meunier as Génésio experimented with a formation where both fullbacks would be shoehorned into the team.

It would prove to be a shortlived experiment where Menuier would play as a right-sided centre-back in a back three while Santos would be the wing-back. Instead, rotation became the answer as the different talents were picked for different games.

Santos earns first Portugal call-up

It was Santos who was given the nod over Meunier in Lille’s most prestigious game when they shocked the world to defeat Real Madrid 1-0 in the Champions League. Santos was able to show a different side of his game. The fullback played with an experience and defensive discipline that belied his young age as Les Dogues shut out the kings of Europe.

Unfortunately for Santos, he would not be able to grow on this experience against Real Madrid as he would only appear in one further game (a substitute against Toulouse) before picking up an injury to his ACL during training. It was a significant blow that ruled the defender out of making another appearance in 2024.

All injuries come at unfortunate times, but for Santos, it feels especially cruel. The defender was beginning to slowly gain the attention of the Portugal national team. Roberto Martínez had provided the former U21 with his first-ever call-up to the national team for the Nations League game against Scotland in September (albeit Santos was not able to earn his first cap).

GFFN | Nick Hartland